Economy Categorization: To categorize the 39 countries surveyed into three categories – advanced economies, emerging markets and developing economies – we started with the World Bank classification of countries by income. The World Bank classifies countries into high income, upper middle income, lower middle income and low income groups. In general, we categorized countries that […]
Pew Research’s fourth major report on global restrictions on religion finds that the share of countries with high or very high restrictions on religion rose from 37% in 2010 to 40% in 2011. The Middle East and North Africa continued to have the highest levels of restrictions in the year when much of the Arab Spring uprisings occurred, with social hostilities involving religion increasing markedly and government restrictions remaining high.
Survey Report As concern mounts about the Syrian government’s possible use of chemical weapons against its own people, publics in the Middle East – especially the Lebanese – are extremely worried about violence spreading to neighboring countries. Nonetheless, a new survey by the Pew Research Center, conducted before news emerged of alleged use of chemical […]
Survey Report Publics around the world are concerned about the effect of global climate change and international financial instability, with majorities in many of the nations surveyed saying these are major threats to their countries. But Islamic extremism is also a serious concern, particularly in the United States, Europe and sub-Saharan Africa. In contrast, relatively […]
China is viewed favorably in just half (19 of 38) of the nations surveyed excluding China itself. Beijing’s strongest supporters are in Asia – in Malaysia (81%) and Pakistan (81%) – and in the African nations of Kenya (78%), Senegal (77%) and Nigeria (76%). There is also a high positive opinion of China in Latin […]
Getting the American public’s attention, let alone commitment to deal with international issues is as challenging as it has ever been in the modern era. The depth and duration of the public’s disengagement these days goes well beyond the periodic spikes in isolationist sentiment that have been observed over the past 50 years.